CoastGIS’99: geomatics and coastal environment
Figure 1
The Coastal Information
Focus Group process
model.
Data and information audit of coastal practitioners
This initial stage provides the basis for future work by identifying the
current sources of information held by other establishments relevant
to coastal zone management in Devon and Cornwall. An analysis of this
audit provided the basis for discussion during the consultative seminar, helping to determine future demonstration software.
Questionnaire and follow-up interviews
The first stage of this audit was a short questionnaire, which was sent
to over 300 people working in coastal zone management across Devon
and Cornwall (local authorities, academics, estuary managers, harbour
masters, fisheries, leisure, local wildlife trusts, national environmental institutions). The questions were designed to give an idea of the CZM data
and information base, and covered subjects such as data theme (physical,
socio-economic, etc.), how data is stored (paper, database, GIS, etc.), and
methods of access to the data (what software was used). The responses
were augmented by an ongoing series of meetings with the data holders,
where data and information holdings were described in further detail
to fill in various categories of metadata - see next section.
The majority of respondents thought that a CZMIS would be useful,
but mostly as a provider of metadata in the first instance, as opposed
to full data access, perceiving that the latter would pose insurmountable
issues of copyright and sensitivity. It is important that people have
access to data, and a metadata system would facilitate this through:
- knowing where to look (metadata can save time trawling through the
Internet);
- knowing what exists is more important than accessing actual data;
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